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Sample Essay on Souls Belated by Edith Wharton
Table of Contents
Introduction: Lydia's Rebellion and the Quest for Freedom
In her short story, “Souls Belated,” Edith Wharton raises the issue of freedom that women lack in marriage. Undeniably, Lydia’s marriage to high-society Tillotson offered a series of social life privileges. However, all these benefits were dampened by the lack of freedom that characterizes married women.
On opposing societal ideals and the rule imposed on women, Lydia abandons her marriage to a rich member of the upper-class society and falls in love with another man named Gannett. Lydia found her relationship with Gannet as an opportunity through which she regained her freedom from “their wanderings during the year” (77). However, Lydia shows reluctance in marrying Gannett and she is again locked into another self-imposed prison in her clandestine relationship with Gannett, as her choice is to remain outside the boundaries of the prevailing social norm.
Driven by the desire for freedom in her relationships, Lydia was in conflict with the societal norm that other women embraced. Even though married legally to Tillotson, she went on to establish an extra-marital affair with Gannet with the hope of finding the freedom she desperately sought. She remained critical of the lack of freedom in marriages. However, she acknowledged she lacked complete control over her life considering the intensity of societal restrictions that would be challenging to overcome. Lydia’s choice of an adulterous relationship with Gannet is a symbol of her desire to liberate herself from marriage prompted by the feminist movement criticizing the inequality within marriages.
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Feminist Perspectives: Challenging Traditional Norms
As Lydia exhibited, sexual liberation tends to be hindered by traditional practices and cultural norms, which significantly restrict women’s freedom. Numerous examples of institutionalized social and traditional practices relating to women’s sexuality prevented women from experiencing sexual liberation. Feminism is based on challenging liberal democratic principles by promoting the idea that the equality of women is wound up with the supposedly female personal lives.
With personal lives considered to revolve around sexual relationships, feminism considers it critical to challenge the conception of male/female relations being natural to represent women and their interests. The proponents of feminism remained unapologetic in their criticism of men while prepared to accept the unpopularity that such accompanies. In the feminist dispensation, women are free to choose the roles they are to take part. Hereby, they hold the conception that widening the horizons of women would enrich male-female relationships (Holmes 237).
The Oppression of Sexuality: Lydia's Self-Determined Path
As Benkert observed, the basis of oppression that women experience in relationships is deeply rooted in their sexuality, which is the very cornerstone of their primary difference. The focus of the oppressed shifts to better understanding the oppression of their sexuality to facilitate the liberation of their sexuality, as well as their total beings (1197). An aspect that comes out from Lydia’s experiences is the feminists’ recognition of the difficulties that they faced in their relations with the males that they viewed as aggressors.
In feminism, the focus of women is on setting their agenda and such is to be easily achieved independently of men (Holmes 236). In Souls Belated, Lydia assumes the responsibility of charting her path of sexuality rather than following societal norms. Holmes observes the feminist tendency to highlight the unfounded nature of the conventional sexualized and objectified representation of the female gender. Such sets the basis of feminism’s opposition to male-dominated perspectives portraying women as sex objects, even though acknowledging that expression of disgust at stereotypes alone cannot succeed in bringing about change (Holmes 237).
Social Norms and Gender Inequality: The Double Standard
At the center of feminism is the invention of the term sexual harassment against women, which is used to establish some protections for women. However, female adultery tends to carry more weight than male adultery. This is considering that female adultery is viewed as a plot to threaten the widespread patriarchal order and the notions of how women are expected to behave in marriages. Social norms reinforce the gender inequality. In a bid to resist the social norms, feminist thought promotes the view that only romance and chivalry are capable of protecting women from the biological aggressiveness of men.
A conservative perspective presumes the existence of a genetic basis for gender roles while assigning all responsibility to prevent sexual assault and promiscuity to women, based on the view that men only follow their instincts. Furthermore, the conservative view gives women the responsibility of rallying together based on their roles that are defined biologically. However, the feminist movement is promoting this perspective by pushing for equality in relationships (Zahra 22).
Anarchism and Individual Liberty: Lydia's Rejection of Hierarchy
In adopting feminism, Lydia adopts the central tenets of anarchism of individual liberty and rejects the established gender hierarchy. This emerges as an opportunity for women who feel that conventional gender roles restrict them. Their analysis of power and hierarchy is responsible for them being drawn to anarchism as an essential ideology they embrace is the primacy of personal autonomy. The push for liberation becomes evident when one considers that the appeal for women’s autonomy was established even though there were men who established an anarchist theory that was not applying the doctrine of individual liberty to women in a similar manner to men.
In the women’s view, the anarchist men in Souls Belated approach women in conventional ways that advance that certain behavioral patterns are natural for each sex. Seeking a revolution, the influence of the individualistic current that characterized the anarchist thought prompts women to disagree with the conventional notion of woman’s nature. By dismissing the interpretation reached by the male theorists, women, as Lydia demonstrates, approve the doctrine of absolute individual liberty, reminding their male counterparts of their responsibility not to interfere with the liberty of women and rejecting the patriarchal authority. This is in the view that female subordination is based on an obsolete system of familial and sexual relationships. Thus, the attacks on marriage and insistence on personal autonomy were critical components of sexual equality (Thomas 3).
Marital Dissatisfaction and Extramarital Affairs: Seeking Intimacy
Considering her marriage with Tillotson, Lydia holds the view that her marriage lacks the intimacy that she would wish to have with a man. As Wharton exemplifies, “She had preferred to think that Tillotson had himself embodied all her reasons for leaving him” (67). Unsatisfied with the marriage, Lydia was increasingly at risk of infidelity, which prompted her to rethink the notions of being in a marital relationship that lacked intimacy. This prompted the development of the desire to engage in extramarital affairs as a response to the unresolved issues that she experienced in her marriage and which she felt she could bear no more. She adopts a feminist stance in cuckolding her husband as she finds them to offer an escape to the boring experiences in her marriage as Wharton advances that, “Before she met Gannett her life had seemed merely dull; his coming made it appear like one of those dismal Cruikshank prints” (69). As Praver notes, her cuckolding becomes a major issue considering the tendency of female infidelity being judged more harshly in comparison to male infidelity.
However, it took a strong conviction from Lydia to demonstrate her dissatisfaction with the conventional social norm, regardless of the benefits the marriage offered. She remained keen to having an affair with Gannett as she considered it a platform through which she could find happiness and, more importantly, the happiness she desired. Aware of the inequalities existing in marriages, her feminist views were apparent as she acknowledged the social norms but was convinced to break them. She argued, “… the world should be ruled by conventions but if we believed in the, why did we break through them? and if we don’t believe in them, is it honest to take advantage of the protection they afford?” (76). She relied on such to defend her resistance to the societal norms on marriage.
Confronting Societal Expectations: Lydia's Internal Conflict
While in an adulterous relationship, it emerges that Lydia was at ease with the situation, and she quickly acquitted herself to the lifestyle of a married woman when living with Gannett. This is considering that even when in the company of Gannett, she could not avoid the lifestyle that she earlier despised as one that she no longer wanted. This is evident in the interactions and lifestyle that she adopts even in their new surroundings. Actually, she is portrayed to acquaint herself easily with the culture that the high-class members of the society adopted while in the hotel. Those she interacts with, such as Lady Susan, constitute rich and married women. To be part of them, Lydia is keen on pretending to be a married woman and her behavior portrays her tendency to interact with the high societal class women that she had earlier established in her marriage with Tillotson. Notably, before meeting up with Mrs. Cope, she is seen to find joy and contentment in the company of other women.
As she sought to know from Lydia what their men were talking about, Mrs. Cope played a critical role in altering the view that Lydia had regarding her relationship with Gannett. “I’m not spiteful by nature, my dear; but you’re a little more than flesh and blood can stand” (89). She became aware that her affair with Gannet was not as straightforward as she earlier imagined. Looking back at the kind of affairs and activities she had been engaged in, she acknowledges finding a tortured soul within her. The expose enabled her to recognize that in getting into her affair with Gannett, she was only lying to herself. She was only appeasing her stand regarding the high society she was claiming no longer interested her.
Conclusion: Lydia's Surrender to Societal Norms
The author used Lydia to criticize the moral constructions of the contemporary society. Evidently, Lydia ends up giving in to contemporary social attitudes towards her adulterous relationship in relation to women, sexuality, and marriage. She accepts that female sexuality remains vulnerable while in a relationship, and there are boundaries that women should not cross.
In Souls Belated, Lydia’s behaviors demonstrate her remorse for her prior actions upon realizing her responsibility and wrong for those actions. While Wharton does not disclose whether Lydia returned to Gannet or not, the author ultimately opposes the initial stance on gender stereotypes touching on gender inequality as Lydia softens her feminist stance.
Works Cited
Benkert, Holly. “Liberating insight from a cross-cultural sexuality study about women.” The American Behavioral Scientist 45.8 (2002): 1197-1207.
Holmes, Mary. “Second-wave feminism and the politics of relationships.” Women’s Studies International Forum 23.2 (2000): 235–246. 2.
Praver, Frances Cohen. Daring wives: insight into women’s desires for extramarital affairs. Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2006.
Thomas, Matthew. “Anarcho-Feminism in late Victorian and Edwardian Britain, 1880±1914.” Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis (2002): 1-31.
Wharton, Edith. “Souls Belated.” Wharton, Edith. The Greater Inclination. Simon and Schuster, n.d. 65-104. Book.
Zahra, Tara. “The feminism gap.” The American Prospect 42 (1999): 20-22.
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